GP contract hailed as great success
pharmafile | September 2, 2005 | News story | |Â Â Â
GPs in England have been hailed as world leaders in chronic disease management by the government following the release of new performance data.
Introduced in April 2004 as part of the new GMS contract, the Quality and Outcomes framework (QOF) is built on providing financial incentives to primary staff to improve patient care, particularly through chronic disease management.
Newly published QOF data suggests the reforms have been a great success, providing GPs with incentives to diagnose, treat and record information on more patients than ever before.
The government and NHS leaders have praised the results saying it shows GP practices are delivering high quality care.
Health Minister Lord Warner said: "This new system gives the NHS, for the first time ever, world-leading intelligence on chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. This means that in the future the NHS will be able to map populations with these debilitating conditions with pinpoint accuracy.
"As the database builds up, it will allow us to focus resources and plan services appropriately to help us tackle health inequalities. That means good news for NHS patients and good value for money for taxpayers."
Under the GMS contract practices are financially rewarded according to the points they earn in relation to clinical care.
Each point earns surgeries between 77 and 124 and the final sum to practices is adjusted to take account of workload and the relative health of patients in their area.
The newly published data reveals practices achieved an average of 91% of the points available to them – 958.7 points out of a possible 1,050.
The data was gathered from 8,468 practices in England, with over half the points (550) awarded to practices according to how well they performed in meeting clinical targets.
Practices also accumulated points in areas like meeting appointment times and the provision of extra services, such as child immunisation.
The average points score achieved by practices for clinical targets was 507 ( 92.3%), with practices most successful at achieving targets associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and hypothyroidism (both above 95%) but least successful were chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and epilepsy (both around 85%).
Across 11 disease areas, the highest recorded prevalence was for the treatment of hypertension followed by asthma and coronary heart disease.
Gill Morgan, chief executive of the NHS confederation commented: "GPs have exceeded expectations during the first year of the QOF, earning more points than was originally estimated, which is good news for patients."
While the success of the contract is good news for GPs and patients, the fact that most practices have exceeded expectations means PCTs will have to pay out more, adding to concern about finances.
NHS trusts in England predict payments to GPs will contribute to a deficit of over 200 million which will needed to be paid out amongst the 8,466 practices that were assessed.
While this will put a financial strain on PCTs, Morgan said these costs would be dwarfed by the potential savings from improving the nation health.
Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA General Practitioners Committee, said the results represented good news for patients and showed that investment in general practice is paying off.
But he added there were many other factors not measured in the framework that reflected whether a GP surgery was good or not.
The QOF framework is currently being reviewed and one influential body, the NHS Alliance, believes it needs to take more account of patient experiences and technical quality indicators.
